Matt Redman has a song on his "Facedown" CD that strikes me each time.
"This is a time for seeing and singing
This is a time for breathing you in and breathing out your praise.
Our hearts respond to your revelation
All you are showing, all we have seen commands a life of praise.
No one can sing of things they have not seen
God open our eyes towards a greater glimpse.
The glory of You - the glory of You
Open our eyes towards a greater glimpse.
Worship starts with Seeing You
Worship starts with Seeing You
Our hearts respond to Your revelation..."
Like the Oswald Chambers writing "Do not look for God to come in any particular way...but look for Him."
What if our times of worship at church or personally were not "just" about singing...
Evenmoreso - they are really about seeing. Tuning our eyes to see Him - to rehearse and refresh that he has not left us wallowing in the mire of this wicked world. He sees and hears and knows and loves.
If we do not see - we will not sing.
Oh Lord - give us a greater glimpse. Open the eyes of our heart that we might know you better.
Feel free to leave a comment of How you have "seen" Jesus show up in Your week.
www.paulagamble.com
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Leave room for God
LEAVE ROOM FOR GOD
(Couldn't say it any better so...here it is)
Jan 25th, My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers
As workers for God we have to learn to make room for God - to give God "elbow room." We calculate and estimate, and say that this and that will happen, and we forget to make room for God to come in as He chooses. Would we be surprised if God came into our meeting or into our preaching in a way we had never looked for Him to come? Do not look for God to come in any particular way, but look for Him.
That is the way to make room for Him.
Expect Him to come, but do not expect Him only in a certain way. However much we may know God, the great lesson to learn is that at any minute He may break in. We are apt to overlook this element of surprise, yet God never works in any other way...
Keep your life so constant in its contact with God that His surprising power may break out on the right hand and on the left. Always be in a state of expectancy, and see that you leave room for God to come in as He likes.
www.paulagamble.com
(Couldn't say it any better so...here it is)
Jan 25th, My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers
As workers for God we have to learn to make room for God - to give God "elbow room." We calculate and estimate, and say that this and that will happen, and we forget to make room for God to come in as He chooses. Would we be surprised if God came into our meeting or into our preaching in a way we had never looked for Him to come? Do not look for God to come in any particular way, but look for Him.
That is the way to make room for Him.
Expect Him to come, but do not expect Him only in a certain way. However much we may know God, the great lesson to learn is that at any minute He may break in. We are apt to overlook this element of surprise, yet God never works in any other way...
Keep your life so constant in its contact with God that His surprising power may break out on the right hand and on the left. Always be in a state of expectancy, and see that you leave room for God to come in as He likes.
www.paulagamble.com
Monday, January 16, 2006
It doesn't take a plane to be a missionary!
One of the privileges of working with CCC is the students... I met one young lady at our winter conference - met her from 10 - midnight while we were worshiping God together. Liked her instantly - though I didn't learn her name or even have a discussion with her til the next day.
At the end of the jam session I told the "kids" who were in room that if I were to choose an army out of the 800 students at the conference, I'd choose the 40 of them. I was inspired by their freedom of worship. They unashamedly adored Jesus in song, dance, petitions, beauty...
It is no surprise, then, to hear that these unabashed worshipers have been fueled for mission. My latest young hero, Amber, is applying to go on a STINT (Short Term INTernational mission) with CCC to Japan. But she's not waiting til the fall to start her missionary work. She wrote and said, "It doesn't take a plane to be a missionary." So her goal - to pray for one girl in her sorority every day...and to take one girl out to coffee once a week to talk and listen and share Christ with them.
Seems simple enough - so as I sit here typing at my computer, locked into my own world of scattery freelance starving artist work I have to ask, "When was the last time I took out a non-believer to coffee?"
It doesn't take a plane to be a missionary...
Thank you Amber - and heaps of God's lavish blessings upon you and your mission at EWU.
www.paulagamble.com
At the end of the jam session I told the "kids" who were in room that if I were to choose an army out of the 800 students at the conference, I'd choose the 40 of them. I was inspired by their freedom of worship. They unashamedly adored Jesus in song, dance, petitions, beauty...
It is no surprise, then, to hear that these unabashed worshipers have been fueled for mission. My latest young hero, Amber, is applying to go on a STINT (Short Term INTernational mission) with CCC to Japan. But she's not waiting til the fall to start her missionary work. She wrote and said, "It doesn't take a plane to be a missionary." So her goal - to pray for one girl in her sorority every day...and to take one girl out to coffee once a week to talk and listen and share Christ with them.
Seems simple enough - so as I sit here typing at my computer, locked into my own world of scattery freelance starving artist work I have to ask, "When was the last time I took out a non-believer to coffee?"
It doesn't take a plane to be a missionary...
Thank you Amber - and heaps of God's lavish blessings upon you and your mission at EWU.
www.paulagamble.com
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Recovering God - Rhythm - David's mixed metaphor
Ps. 40:3 - The Message
"He taught me how to sing the latest God-song, a praise song to our God.
More and more people are seeing this:
They enter the mystery,
abandoning themselves to God."
There is a major incongruity here...a mixed metaphor if you will.
David says God taught him to sing...then he says that people are seeing this...
Wouldn't the more natural verb be people are "hearing" or "listening" to the song?
But David uses the word "seeing."
Naturally this caused a lot of brain confusion for me - I myself wanting to enter the mystery of why David would mix metaphors -
Well - first, he's a poet - and we all know poets and artists can do what they want even if it doesn't really make sense. Beauty doesn't have to make sense.
Second, he's also King David - a man after God's own heart whose songs and heart cries (including really wicked impreccatory words of righteous anger) are Holy Scripture - inspired by God. So this is no mistake on his part.
So this is what I "saw" as I leaned into the text this morning.
When I am driving down the road with my stereo playing a song that moves my heart...it quite often also moves my fingers and hands to tap on the steering wheel. Have you ever looked into your rearview mirror to see a person bouncing their head and banging their hands and belting out some song as if they are auditioning for the next American Idol? You snicker because you caught them doing what you usually do - but would hate to be caught doing. You do not hear one word of what's being sung...but you see very obviously that the melody has moved their mouth, hands and head.
That is what music does...it moves us. God never intended music to merely be sung. We were not intended to just to utter words like, "I could sing of your love forever." Who cares? But if that singing doesn't stir your pulse, move your feet, sway your body, create a beat to walk to...who cares?
Music only heard is "nice." Lift your snobby nose in the air and clap like an aristocrat.
Our world doesn't need nice.
We need rhythm. David danced before the Lord with all his might. And what was his response to the naysayers? "I'll become even more undignified than this... I will celebrate before the Lord." 2 Sam 6:22.
We need the people of God whom God is teaching his songs to actually MOVE to the rhythm he is giving. When I see someone doing what they were created to do - I am so inspired. They are dancing, singing, praying, creating, loving right in step with their inner God-rhythm/melody. There is nothing more beautiful. And when others see this -
they too are given the courage to enter the mystery...
to abandon themselves to God's melody for their own lives...
to abandon themselves to the rhythm that is uniquely theirs ...
and to live that rhythm out before the world...turning our backs on what the world worships...not living to the conformity of the world's rhythms. No - tuning into God channels by learning to taste and see and hear and smell and feel the God wonders all around us.
Are people entering the mystery and abandoning themselves to God? If not, one has to wonder if our singing on Sundays is that alone. We are singing...but it is not being seen. Most of us know our neighbors and friends - the people outside the four walls of our fellowship/group - may never hear us sing on Sunday...but they will see whether or not that singing has moved our feet to tap, our mouths to utter hope and truth, our arms to love...
Let God teach you how to sing the latest God song...it is YOUR song...it is YOUR rhythm... it is what he wants to teach you so that you move your feet and tap your hands and stay in step with the melody and rhythm he has put in you. It is unlike any other. Listen for YOUR song...for YOUR God-given rhythm...it's there as sure as the blood is pulsing through your veins. And start dancing to it...irrepressibly let yourself do the things you cannot not do for reasons you cannot explain.
I, nor anyone else can teach you abandonment. It happens as you let God teach you His rhythm for you...and you let that rhythm pulse through you...
Others will see ... others will say, "I want that too." They'll dip in their toes, and learn the freedom of the "unforced rhythms of Grace."
www.paulagamble.com
"He taught me how to sing the latest God-song, a praise song to our God.
More and more people are seeing this:
They enter the mystery,
abandoning themselves to God."
There is a major incongruity here...a mixed metaphor if you will.
David says God taught him to sing...then he says that people are seeing this...
Wouldn't the more natural verb be people are "hearing" or "listening" to the song?
But David uses the word "seeing."
Naturally this caused a lot of brain confusion for me - I myself wanting to enter the mystery of why David would mix metaphors -
Well - first, he's a poet - and we all know poets and artists can do what they want even if it doesn't really make sense. Beauty doesn't have to make sense.
Second, he's also King David - a man after God's own heart whose songs and heart cries (including really wicked impreccatory words of righteous anger) are Holy Scripture - inspired by God. So this is no mistake on his part.
So this is what I "saw" as I leaned into the text this morning.
When I am driving down the road with my stereo playing a song that moves my heart...it quite often also moves my fingers and hands to tap on the steering wheel. Have you ever looked into your rearview mirror to see a person bouncing their head and banging their hands and belting out some song as if they are auditioning for the next American Idol? You snicker because you caught them doing what you usually do - but would hate to be caught doing. You do not hear one word of what's being sung...but you see very obviously that the melody has moved their mouth, hands and head.
That is what music does...it moves us. God never intended music to merely be sung. We were not intended to just to utter words like, "I could sing of your love forever." Who cares? But if that singing doesn't stir your pulse, move your feet, sway your body, create a beat to walk to...who cares?
Music only heard is "nice." Lift your snobby nose in the air and clap like an aristocrat.
Our world doesn't need nice.
We need rhythm. David danced before the Lord with all his might. And what was his response to the naysayers? "I'll become even more undignified than this... I will celebrate before the Lord." 2 Sam 6:22.
We need the people of God whom God is teaching his songs to actually MOVE to the rhythm he is giving. When I see someone doing what they were created to do - I am so inspired. They are dancing, singing, praying, creating, loving right in step with their inner God-rhythm/melody. There is nothing more beautiful. And when others see this -
they too are given the courage to enter the mystery...
to abandon themselves to God's melody for their own lives...
to abandon themselves to the rhythm that is uniquely theirs ...
and to live that rhythm out before the world...turning our backs on what the world worships...not living to the conformity of the world's rhythms. No - tuning into God channels by learning to taste and see and hear and smell and feel the God wonders all around us.
Are people entering the mystery and abandoning themselves to God? If not, one has to wonder if our singing on Sundays is that alone. We are singing...but it is not being seen. Most of us know our neighbors and friends - the people outside the four walls of our fellowship/group - may never hear us sing on Sunday...but they will see whether or not that singing has moved our feet to tap, our mouths to utter hope and truth, our arms to love...
Let God teach you how to sing the latest God song...it is YOUR song...it is YOUR rhythm... it is what he wants to teach you so that you move your feet and tap your hands and stay in step with the melody and rhythm he has put in you. It is unlike any other. Listen for YOUR song...for YOUR God-given rhythm...it's there as sure as the blood is pulsing through your veins. And start dancing to it...irrepressibly let yourself do the things you cannot not do for reasons you cannot explain.
I, nor anyone else can teach you abandonment. It happens as you let God teach you His rhythm for you...and you let that rhythm pulse through you...
Others will see ... others will say, "I want that too." They'll dip in their toes, and learn the freedom of the "unforced rhythms of Grace."
www.paulagamble.com
Saturday, January 07, 2006
Who buys all those mattresses?
A few nights ago I got sucked into the bad tv vortex...
I hate it when that happens. So now, in order to excuse/justify my lack of discipline, let me share a few cultural observations...
Straight up prime time - 8pm - opening scene of CSI...two college students stripping down to underwear...the filming stopped just short of what i imagine would qualify as an x rated "adult" movie sex scene aka pornography.
What would Lucy and Desi - who slept in separate twin beds - say?
Ay yi yi
Within a few hours...murder, abortion, illicit sex, drug and alcohol abuse, the "gay cowboy" movie, transgender "regendering" surgeries, ghosts, vampires...evil, power, control abuse... ugh! All in one night of "Must See" TV.
Ay yi yi -
If this is what the network says we "must see" - what does that say about us? Our visions are not very grand or glorious.
And then there's the ads - they say a lot about us.
Food, food, food - fresh, fast, cheap....
followed by ads for diet programs, exercise equipment, gym membership deals, and high cholestoral medication.
In other words...parttake in the plenty - we have "easy" remedies. Binge and purge.
Indulge without consequence...Hmmmm
And the big question on my mind - do we really buy that many mattresses? Three different companies on every single commercial break trying to sell us mattresses. I don't know about you - but I've had mine for a dozen or more years...Who is buying all these mattresses?
Oh well - I say this - stop the madness...repent of self-abuse of body, mind and soul.
I hate it when that happens. So now, in order to excuse/justify my lack of discipline, let me share a few cultural observations...
Straight up prime time - 8pm - opening scene of CSI...two college students stripping down to underwear...the filming stopped just short of what i imagine would qualify as an x rated "adult" movie sex scene aka pornography.
What would Lucy and Desi - who slept in separate twin beds - say?
Ay yi yi
Within a few hours...murder, abortion, illicit sex, drug and alcohol abuse, the "gay cowboy" movie, transgender "regendering" surgeries, ghosts, vampires...evil, power, control abuse... ugh! All in one night of "Must See" TV.
Ay yi yi -
If this is what the network says we "must see" - what does that say about us? Our visions are not very grand or glorious.
And then there's the ads - they say a lot about us.
Food, food, food - fresh, fast, cheap....
followed by ads for diet programs, exercise equipment, gym membership deals, and high cholestoral medication.
In other words...parttake in the plenty - we have "easy" remedies. Binge and purge.
Indulge without consequence...Hmmmm
And the big question on my mind - do we really buy that many mattresses? Three different companies on every single commercial break trying to sell us mattresses. I don't know about you - but I've had mine for a dozen or more years...Who is buying all these mattresses?
Oh well - I say this - stop the madness...repent of self-abuse of body, mind and soul.
4 words that will change your life...
Yesterday a friend wrote me a few of her New Year's resolutions and asked for prayer. Now truth be known, I could take or leave NYRs. I don't want to fall into what feels like a gimmicky marketing tool for my well-being. And, truth be known, I don't want to fail...again...
Well, my friend's heart was noble and vulnerable - she longed to grow in her relationship with God. The last four words of her email were stunning - she felt she could rearrange her life a bit...
"...because I love Him."
Exquisite, really.
Well, my friend's heart was noble and vulnerable - she longed to grow in her relationship with God. The last four words of her email were stunning - she felt she could rearrange her life a bit...
"...because I love Him."
Exquisite, really.
Oh how NYRs come and go - perhaps it's because our motives are so quirky.
Exercise and eat right to be a better steward of my body
vs.
Exercise and eat right ...because I love Him
Which is more motivating? The former is seemingly pious/spiritual, but functional. The latter - it is relational.
What if all our New Year's resolutions were based on love of Him?
Would it change my "stick-to-it-ness"?
Would I actually enjoy the discipline because of the love?
Because I love him - would that more of my daily choices be made with love in mind - not just a check mark on a list.
I will say no to a second helping - because I love him.
I will say no to bad tv - because I love him
I will say yes to exercise - because I love him
I will say yes to an abuse recovery support group - because I love him.
Four words that will change your/my life.
Yes - I am loved by God - "meteorically"! But would that I'd retain remembrance of our love so I could walk through each moment with joy and faithfulness ... because I love him.
I am my beloved and he is mine...His banner over me is love.
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